Monday, July 16, 2012

Tens of thousands of people packed Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park yesterday for Japan’s biggest anti-nuclear rally since the Fukushima disaster last year in growing protests against government moves to restart atomic reactors. Speakers at the demonstration, which broke up at 1:30 p.m. into three separate marches through Japan’s capital, included Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, who wrote the score for the movie “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.”

Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda angered nuclear opponents last month when he approved the restart of two reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co. (9503)’s Ohi plant, which were shutdown along with other units for safety checks after the meltdown and radiation release from the wrecked Fukushima station. A Mainichi newspaper poll on June 4 showed as many as 71 percent of Japanese opposed the restart.

“The government allowed the Ohi nuclear reactors to restart and it’s going to allow more reactors to restart. We feel we are insulted by the government,” said Oe in his speech to the rally. “We have to stop the government’s plan,” said Oe, 77, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994.

“No to Nuclear Restarts” has become the rallying cry of protesters every Friday evening since the end of March in demonstrations outside Noda’s official residence. Police estimate around 10,000 people protested there on July 6, blocked from entering by a fleet of pale-blue police buses and dozens of uniformed and plainclothes officers.

Yoyogi organizers, http://sayonara-nukes.org, said as many as 170,000 people attended the rally yesterday. National television broadcaster NHK said the figure was 75,000, citing the police. In two phone calls by Bloomberg News, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police said they were not providing any estimate for the Yoyogi rally.

‘Something Wrong’

“There’s something wrong in this country when even if thousands of people protest in front of the prime minister’s residence they still reactivate the plants,” said Koichiro Mori, a literature student at Kyoto University. “We’ve developed an economy that is capable of sacrificing its own people; our goal is to change such a society,” said Mori, who was at Yoyogi with students representing about 15 universities from Okinawa in the south to Tohoku in the north. Read More: Tokyo Anti-Nuclear Rally Attracts Thousands as Protests Grow - Bloomberg

The disaster at the Fukushima power plant may have been triggered by a tsunami, but it was human error that made it into one of the worst-ever nuclear accidents in human history, a Japanese Parliamentary panel says.

The Japanese government is considering unparalleled counter-measures to withstand the inevitable earthquakes and tsunamis awaiting Japan in the future. Experts propose preparation of emergency government offices in the country’s five major cities.

As Japan restarted some of its nuclear reactors amid mass protests, questions about the safety and future of the nuclear energy continue to swirl. But according to the head of the Russian state nuclear agency, the industry is only set to grow.

Japan’s Kansai Electric Power Company has restarted a nuclear reactor after almost two months being nuclear free. The move has been met with mass protests, as tens of thousands have rallied throughout the country since March to oppose nuclear energy.

While some countries have shut down nuclear energy plants, others are investing in new power units. Rosatom says its ready to invest in the construction of the second nuclear power plant at Temelin in the Czech Republic.

TEPCO’s new estimates suggest that its Fukushima reactor has released more than quadruple the amount of radioactive cesium-137 leaked during the Chernobyl disaster. But the method used to measure the damage may undervalue the hazard even further.

Japan is set to shut down its last operational nuclear plant following last year’s Fukushima meltdown disaster. However, with a giant energy quota to fill and no viable substitute, many predict a nuclear-free future will be short-lived.

Beleaguered Japanese energy company TEPCO has been dealt another blow after a scathing report accused it of risking a chain reaction of nuclear meltdowns when it tried to abandon the Fukushima power plant last March.­

With the powerful earthquake and tsunami hitting Japan last year, the country seemed to be devastated and almost beyond recovery. Still, 11 months on, the Japanese have made amazing progress in raising their lives and cities from the rubble.